Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system, an apparatus, a method, and a storage medium for inhibiting execution of an application on a terminal.
Description of the Related Art
Failures (market failures) of a released application are found by user calling to a call center of the provider (developer) of the application, or by other means when users run into trouble. In the methods for collecting the failure information, a method of causing an error detection program to operate on an application execution terminal and notifying a server of an error occurred has become prevalent. The provider of the application, based on the collected failure information, notifies the users of the application causing the failures. Further, to inhibit the market failures, the provider may newly develop an application taking measures against the failures.
One of the methods for reducing the market failures is to notify the users of the collected failure information. The methods of notifying the users of the collected failure information includes a known method in which individual terminals access information managed in a server via a network, and change graphics of an icon corresponding to the obtained information (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-232223). The methods also include a known method in which a server notifies a terminal related to a terminal in which an error has occurred (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-14880).
More advanced methods for reducing the market failures include a method for controlling installation or execution of an application causing failures. In a known method, at the time of installation of a terminal, a server determines whether to permit to install an application, and based on the determination result, the terminal performs the installation (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-49434). In another method, a serviceman of a multifunction peripheral (MFP) reports information, for example, information of occurrence of a failure in printing in a model with A4-sized sheets stapling in landscape orientation, and manually makes a trouble dictionary in a server. Print setting software checks whether print settings instructed by a user prior to the printing include a failure occurrence condition, and if the software determines that the settings may cause a failure, notifies the user using a dialog (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-243911). In another known method, an operation at the time of icon click is changed depending on an installation state of an application (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-5254).
In the method in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-232223, depending on the data on the server, all terminals change the graphics of the icon. However, the operation at the icon click is not changed.
In the method in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-14880, an error occurred in a terminal is also displayed on the other terminals. However, in the method, in which terminal the error may occur is not considered.
In the method in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-49434, in the installation of the application in the terminal, the determination of the installation is delegated to the server. However, how the determination of the installation is to be performed at the server side is not discussed.
In the method in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-243911, until the market failure countermeasure application becomes available, an information file (failure dictionary) including avoidance methods to known failures is sent to the client environment. Further, the failure dictionary file is provided in a state the file can be always remotely updated from the server apparatus to prevent occurrence of failures. However, in this method, the failure dictionary is not created by determining what condition of the terminal causes a failure.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-5254, all icons of installable applications are displayed on the terminal, and at the time of icon click, if the relevant application has already installed, the application is activated. If the application has not installed yet, a dialog for asking the user whether to install the application is displayed, and the installation is performed. However, a condition for changing the operation at the time of icon click is only the installation state of the application in the terminal.
Now, it is assumed that an environment where many applications have been registered in an application distribution server, and users of various terminals download an application from the application distribution server to use the application is provided. In such an environment, if a failure is found after the release of the application, it is necessary to inhibit the execution of the application. However, conditions causing errors sometimes include a combination of an application and a terminal, and in such a case, it is not necessary to notify all user terminals of the application having caused the failure.